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Topic: Visitation of His Beautitude (Read 5452 times)

This past Sunday, we were blessed to have His Beautitude Mor Basileos Thomas the I, Catholicos of India, celibrate the Holy Qurbono (Liturgy) at one of our parishes in the Los Angeles area. This man is a living saint. I will try and post some pictures when I get them.

Your post was inflammatory. Our co-admin Mor Ephrem is on the Catholicos faction, so please be respectful. You are free to dispute his side if you'd like, but you must not issue "cheap shots" at the Catholicosate side (just like Catholicosate folks can't do similiar things to your side).

More specifically, when you call them "nationalist" they could call the patriarchal side nationalist for a Syrian seeks to dominate an Indian Church. Or when you say your side is traditional, they could respond that the Pan-Oriental Orthodox Synod of 1965 declared that their Church should be independent.

Anyway, I don't seek to enter this dispute--if you'd like to argue your side, please feel free to start a new thread. But when a simple question is asked, please give a simple answer, not a loaded answer.

Your post was inflammatory. Our co-admin Mor Ephrem is on the Catholicos faction, so please be respectful. You are free to dispute his side if you'd like, but you must not issue "cheap shots" at the Catholicosate side (just like Catholicosate folks can't do similiar things to your side).

More specifically, when you call them "nationalist" they could call the patriarchal side nationalist for a Syrian seeks to dominate an Indian Church. Or when you say your side is traditional, they could respond that the Pan-Oriental Orthodox Synod of 1965 declared that their Church should be independent.

Anyway, I don't seek to enter this dispute--if you'd like to argue your side, please feel free to start a new thread. But when a simple question is asked, please give a simple answer, not a loaded answer.

Thank you for your cooperation.

anastasiosADMIN

You have insulted me greatly with these remarks.

His question was quite loaded to begin with, so I gave a corrected answer.

To label the traditional side as "Patriarchal" is incorrect. Yes we have a Patriarch, but we also have a Catholicos, who is the same thing in essence. The traditional Antiochian Church is non-national. If you know anything about the IOC, you will know that they are fiercely, and OPENLY nationalistic. The traditional Antiochian Church transcends national and ethnic boundries.

The Church in India is independent already, having its own administration, structure, etc. So if I answer "independent," which group am I referring to, the SOC or IOC? If I answer the "patriarchal," which group am I referring to, since both recognize OPENLY the spiritual position of the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East.

They cannot claim that Syria dominates India, such a claim is unwarranted and ridiculous. The Church is located in every Arabic speaking nation in the Near East, and our patriarch is from Mosul, Iraq.

No one has a problem if certain people in India wish to have no affiliation with the traditional SOC, that's their perogative. It is a non-issue. And in 1965, the IOC rejoined the SOC, and only in 1970 did it emerge as the group it is today.

You say you don't want to enter this dispute, but you read FAR TOO DEEP with your own personal views to issue an attack on me without being fair and objective. You begged us to start posting in this thread, and then you have the nerve to send such a rude and obnoxious responce to me. You know quite well that my answer was simple and precise. If you don't want me posting here, that's quite fine with me. I was trying to help you out by posting news of a blessed spiritual experience I had with our Catholicos. I have more important things to do with my time than deal with personal attacks.

I did not attack you. I did not say anything rude or obnoxious to you. I merely pointed out that others don't see things your way.

SamB's question was not loaded--he is not on either of your sides since he is a Melkite Catholic! And he is Arab so he would be more inclined to support your side anyway. He asked a simple question! You could have answered "we take offense at you calling us the patriarchal side." The whole point is, you jumped the gun. You read way too much into his post. I called you out on it, and you got offended.

Why would I have any reason to attack you personally?? You're right, I just got done sending you and the other Non-Chalcedonians several posts asking you to participate more, so it would make no sense for me to attack you. Come on! I do have a responsibility to maintain objectiveness, and I INVITED YOU TO OPEN A NEW THREAD AND DISCUSS ANY OF THESE ISSUES THAT YOU WANTED. So why are you mad?

Of course I want you to post here, which is why I asked you about three times to post here more. But your answer was not precise (at least not to me).

And to assume that I am "pro-independent Indian" based on my last post is wrong. You don't know my views--I merely pointed out what the other side COULD say. To be honest with you, I have no opinion whatsoever on your internal Church schism. I just want unity.

Please do not get so easily offended! Everyone that knows me would say that I am a nice person and I don't seek to make people mad. But I have to maintain objectivity, and I saw your post as deliberately inflammatory because to call your side the traditional side without any qualification when you know that independent-Indian posters post here seemed to me to be aimed at starting a fight. If you tell me that that was not your intent, I will retract my statement. However, you can't argue with how I genuinely perceived your post. Just qualify your answer more--you could have just answered, "this catholicos is the one who recognizes the spiritual authority of the Syriac Patriarch of Antioch" and everyone would have been happy.

It appears to me that BOTH of you have overreacted. As my coworker would say, settle down.

If that is how it appears to you then I apologize for any overreaction on my part. As I said before, though, I have no stake in the dispute and I only want unity and peace, and anyone is free to discuss these issues in new threads.

Believe me when I say that I, for one, do not want to see an all out, no holds barred discussion on the ecclesiastical situation currently going on in India, and I'll be very candid about why I feel this way.

First of all, it is my opinion, having read as much as I can about the situation from both sides, and discussing the matter with other Oriental Orthodox brethren, that our Church, the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (which does not recognise the administrative authority of the Patriarch of Antioch in internal Church matters in India), needs no defence. Second, debating these matters too much personally has a spiritually detrimental effect on me--after a while, I tend to feel depressed, bitter, angry, etc., and such is not good for me or for anyone else; I trust you understand. Third, as an Indian myself, I am intimately acquainted with the situation: I live it, with family and friends on both sides. I see the division both sides have brought to pass, and I don't like it at all (although, thanks be to God, on the local level there are occasionally some good signs). I know that every Church has its problems, but these especially weigh on my heart, and they make me seriously wonder if I should leave our Church and join the Coptic or Armenian Orthodox Churches, or even one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Every Church has its share of problems, but at least, so I'm thinking, it might not be as bad as this, and such a move might even be spiritually beneficial for me.

If I had to say anything about the remarks in this thread, though, I would say only this. To boil the situation there down to "nationalism" is to do it a serious injustice. There is a lot more to it than nationalism; I would go so far as to say that nationalism is, seriously, the last thing on anyone's mind.

With that, I would like to ask Mikho to post pictures of His Beatitude's visit as soon as he gets them, or a link to them. Thanks!

Gosh, it seems like a lot was read into Mikho's answer. While it may have been somewhat tendentious and deserving of a request to use more neutral language, it did not appear so barbed as to deserve getting jumped all over. I would hate to lose his participation in the forum.